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Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby on Collaboration: “This Was a Way To Fuck with Americana”So what do they make of collab king Virgil Abloh, the newly minted head of Louis Vuitton men’s, whose work Simons has spoken of bleakly in the past? When an audience member asked, Simons looked at his friend and smiled mischievously: “Sterling?” Ruby had kinder words for Abloh: “The curatorial process of it or the styling process of [this kind of streetwear] is giving the wearer more liberty…[as well as] the presence and the passion to mix it up.” He added, “I really like the Grailed phenomenon…. An entirely younger demo is looking at [clothing] from a collector’s perspective.”

The Mad Dash to Buy Vintage Clothes on InstagramSuch is the roller coaster of regret and triumph for a new breed of shoppers that has made Instagram’s vintage shops part of their daily routine. Hundreds of accounts post carefully curated looks several times a day, and they often sell within minutes—or seconds. Since the clothes are plucked from thrift shops or a grandmother’s closet, they’re effectively one-of-a-kind. Miss an alert, and it’s gone forever.

How UpscaleHype Became Menswear’s Most Important Instagram AccountAllen, 33, started UpscaleHype in 2008 with his younger brother Kyle, 31, who’s piped into our meeting by speakerphone. Growing up watching award shows and music videos, Allen was always curious about what his favorite celebrities wore. But he cared less about the red carpet and camera-ready outfits—meticulously planned and stylist-engineered—than about what celebrities were wearing in their day-to-day lives. “Because day-to-day is their true self,” Allen explains. The brothers, who grew up and live in Houston, noticed that there were plenty of blogs hunting down exactly what women were wearing, and blasting that info out to their followers. But for men “there was this big void in the market,” says Allen. Kyle, meanwhile, wanted to start a luxury lifestyle blog—until, a week into the project, Allen decided to aim their then-tiny spotlight at well-dressed dudes. After that epiphany, “We hit the ground running and from that day that became UpscaleHype,” says Allen. It started as a website, but today, most of the brothers’ effort goes into the Instagram.

4 Ways Sneaker Brands Successfully Build Hype
*"Behind the scenes, a team of marketers and publicists deployed time-tested tactics to turn the $30 doll into an emotional object worth thousands. Some of the strategies they used to build hype around the toy – like sending free product to media influencers – seem to be ripped straight from today’s headlines. In reality, the ways fashion, sneaker, and streetwear brands conjure up “cool” are as old as the sun.

It’s a well-known fact that hype multiplies. Here’s how it goes from zero to one."*

The Fur Sustainability Debate: Is Real or Faux Better for the Planet?More than two decades later, the fur industry (bruised, but not beaten by the campaigns against it) is back in the spotlight, as week after week it seems like another luxury brand announces that it is going fur-free. In the past six months alone, Gucci, Versace, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, Furla, John Galliano and Donna Karan have added their names to the list. Tom Ford and Givenchy's Clare Waight Keller have pivoted away from exotic skins in favor of shearling, cowhide and fluffy faux furs. Yoox Net-A-Porter Group stopped selling fur last year, citing customer feedback, and for the May issue of InStyle, editor in chief Laura Brown penned a letter about her decision not to photograph fur for the magazine, a policy that's been in place since she arrived in 2016.

Antwerp Academy Student Suicide Calls Teaching Methods into QuestionThe fashion program at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, led by Walter Van Beirendonck, is one of the most prestigious in the world. But after a recent suicide, current and former students have come forward with accounts of depression and drug abuse, calling teaching methods into question.

The Truth About VetementsIn the latest Lyst Index, BoF crunches the data to identify the hottest brands and top selling products of Q1 2018, revealing the truth about whether much-hyped Vetements is still performing.

The Reported $3.1 Billion Tax Evasion Investigation of Gucci is Still UnderwayGucci’s parent company is not out of the woods in the ongoing tax evasion investigation by Italian authorities. Following claims that Gucci’s Milan and Florence offices were raided by Italian tax police in December in connection with an investigation by Milan financial authorities as a result of suspected tax evasion in connection with 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in unpaid taxes beginning in 2010, it was revealed that Gucci failed to pay a reported 2.5 billion euros ($3.1 billion) in taxes in Italy and France.